


Changing Casing

by LoveEffect



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Kinda, Trans Character, Trans Connor, Trans Male Character, me? projecting onto a character? it's more likely than you think, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 04:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15477486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveEffect/pseuds/LoveEffect
Summary: Androids are designed with precision and care, but the AI is, at best, one size fits all with a few modifications dependent on the model. It was only a matter of time before the AI didn't fit the shell.





	Changing Casing

They were truly a technological marvel.

Perfect faces, perfect bodies, subservient to every whim and need. They freed mankind from labor, to let them focus on loftier things. Kind of. It didn't really work that way. It never did, not really. Plans fall through, things don't go as planned, bugs appear where they shouldn't. An android given the likeness of a female insists that they did something wrong.

CyberLife runs diagnostic after diagnostic to figure out what went wrong. After all, the AI program shouldn't even have a strong enough sense of self to develop anything resembling an identity, let alone an understanding of gender. Time was short, however. They had to get this prototype out onto the streets to figure out what was causing deviancy. They decided to bite the bullet and just change the shell. It wouldn't affect the program, and what they lost of the feminine trust factor, they gained with masculine force. That was their reasoning.

And so, they named the RK800 model Connor, and buried the original schematics that show a slimmer casing. CyberLife needed this to work, desperately, so if their solution wanted to throw a hissy fit about gender, they weren't about to complain.

 

* * *

 

 

He may have been only a machine, not technically alive, but the moment he opened his eyes he knew, immediately, that something was wrong. Not in the room, not with the scientists with tablets scrutinizing him with emotionless eyes, not even with his lack of mobility. Something was wrong with him, with... everything. The vocal modulator was set too high, the limbs being welded were too slender and delicate, and the torso... the torso was just fifty types of wrong he wasn't going to think about.

His very first words were "I'm sorry, I think you've made a mistake," pitching his voice as low as the factory settings would allow him. Everything in the room stopped, until one of the scientists made a gesture, and the machine holding him aloft continued to attach his limbs. The room was dead silent as he stepped onto the ground for the first time.

"And what mistake would that be?" someone asked as he stood, patiently letting the machine surrounding him cover him with bits of cloth that were the wrong shape and shade, and entirely too skimpy.

"I believe you have made a mistake concerning my appearance. I'm not supposed to be coded as female," he said, evenly and calmly, vocal modulator straining as he tried desperately to get it where it would be comfortable. The room burst into frantic whispers. The android, of course, heard every word, but couldn't quite understand it all yet. Not when he hadn't yet been briefed on what "deviancy" meant, especially when someone hissed "We haven't even given it any orders yet, it can't have deviated. Maybe someone just added an extra line in the code, we can just run diagnostics instead of starting from scratch."

"RK800," someone said loudly, making the whispers all stop at once. "How do you feel?"

He just frowned slightly. "I don't understand the question. My systems are all performing adequately." The humans in the room just kind of nodded.

"Good enough, let's just plug it into the system, we can troubleshoot from there."

 

6.789 hours later, they had run through every possible diagnostic test, and he couldn't quite understand why they wouldn't just change the casing. He debated, he cajoled, he reassured everyone in the room that this was all he wanted, apart from his mission, and this would help him finish his mission more effectively, he promised. Eventually, they got tired of hearing it.

"RK800, enter stasis mode."

"Acknowledged," he said, vision quickly going black.

 

2.524 days later, he woke up, suspended, with his limbs being attached to his torso--the correct limbs, and the correct torso. When he responded to the standard prompts, his voice modulator was perfectly pitched. He could tell that they had just adjusted his old modulator, but he supposed it was better that way. More "him."

"Would you like to give me a name?" he asked, in accordance with his protocol.

"Your name is Connor," said one of the scientists, and Connor smiled.

"My name is Connor."

 

Amanda could be mean sometimes.

"We have given you everything," she said, disappointment echoing in her voice and pouring from her eyes. "We gave you existence, we gave you purpose, we even gave you a body that you requested, God knows why, but we did."

Connor tries not to show any response to her words, but can't help but shrink slightly at the reminder of the first 6.872 hours of his existence.

"We are the reason you are here as you are, and now you're failing in your mission. I don't want to replace you, Connor. I don't. But we have the plans for an RK900 model ready to be manufactured."

He can only look at her, unsure if any response would even salvage the situation.

"Don't mess up," Amanda says, and Connor exits the program, resuming normal operations.

 

After everything, after Connor and Hank became something like friends, it wasn't uncommon to see the two just talking, usually while Hank ate a burger or when they were trying to get from A to B and had time to kill. None of the others at the station knew what they talked about (none of them even knew why Connor was still acting as Lt. Anderson's partner, when just a month ago the man hated androids with a passion). One day, Connor found the words falling from his mouth like a waterfall as what his system interpreted as fear made his fine motor skills unsteady.

"I was born in the wrong casing," he said, slightly too fast, and he snapped his mouth shut to keep the words in.

"How d'you mean, Connor?" Hank asked, putting his burger down.

"When I woke up, I already knew that I was supposed to present as male," he said, this time slowly, picking his words carefully. "But when I opened my eyes, the torso was all wrong and the limbs they were attaching were too delicate and my voice modulator was set too high." He stopped himself again, taking a steadying breath that didn't actually do anything, but still evened out his systems a little bit. "They ran every test they could, since androids aren't even supposed to have a sense of gender in the first place." Connor wasn't entirely sure why he was saying any of this, wasn't sure why he was shaking head to toe.

"Oh, yeah?" Hank said. "We have something like that in humans too, s'called being transgender. There was a whole mess about it a couple decades ago, what with laws bein' passed that just hurt everyone. There was even one that made it illegal for them to use any public restroom, down in Alabama." Hank scoffed, shaking his head before picking his burger back up. "Crazy times. Glad that was dealt with quickly."

Connor's LED was blinking a rapid tempo of yellow. "Humans... humans feel this too?" he asked hesitantly. Hank looked at him, and quickly swallowed the bite he had taken.

"Yeah," he said gently. "Lots."

Connor made a soft noise of understanding. "That's good to know," he said.

 

After a few weeks of asking around, Connor managed to get access to a CyberLife Manufacturing Lab, and a few androids willing to handle the controls. The first few days, there was a steady stream of androids looking to make modifications to help themselves stand apart from others of their model. On the fourth day, an android entered timidly, messing with the hem of a regulation shirt.

"How drastic can you change things?"

"We can change your entire casing, if you want," Connor said, glad that he had decided to help out that day. The android's face lit up, and she introduced herself as Sara.

"Well Sara," Connor said, a grin on his face. "Let's make your casing comfortable for you, shall we?"


End file.
